If you don't work in a tower then you don't know how culture develops up there. Dwelling in the tower requires adaptation. Imagine hovering suspended fifteen to fifty floors above lobby level; it feels like boarding a starship.

Today, as the corpies returned to duty you could see the leave hadn't left our eyes. We nearly walked by without seeing each other. Our pupils were focused but our brains were discordant. We hadn't surrendered to the rigidity of the work week. In our minds and our hearts, we were still free.

EBAY has EVERYTHING

EGYPTIAN KING TUT COFFIN (Made in Egypt)

Replica For Sale: King Tut's Second Coffin

Starting bid:

US $6,000.00

End time:

Nov-22-06 19:55:44 PST (1 day 20 hours)

Item location:

Springfield, IL, United States (how do I fix the spacing?)

History:

0 bids

THANKSGIVING

I am preparing for the big eating blitz that is this Thursday for those celebrating the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. My menu is representative of a lot of people's fare; people have been making slight variations on the same meal for two hundred years. wikipedia:thanksgiving . I have spent HOURS pouring over cookbooks (Joy of Cooking, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, Moosewood Low Fat by Mollie Katzen (Rebecca - I realized that I did try one of the Moosewood - at your engagement party), Food & Wine Best of the Best, How to Cook Everything, New York Times, Field of Greens) and online \ epicurious , sfgate , what's cooking america (check out the turduken photo - geez!), allrecipes and of course, Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen .

How is that we all spend so much time and energy preparing this one meal and we are all just replicating the same thing? It's kind of mind boggling. Nuances of preparation are the key. Perhaps this is what makes us human...echoing our individuality in the sweet potatoe pie or the variation on the stuffing/dressing on the same day that everyone else in the country is eating the same thing. Does that strike anyone else as odd?

This year my boyfriend, D & I are going to host. Thursday is not only a national holiday, it is also the day that we introduce our parents. I guess there's no guesswork left to why I've been so intent on having an excellent Thanksgiving feast. It's an auspicious occasion. My turkey will be delicious and moist, damn it!

It will. I'm actually not nervous (as some women would be) at all. I have hosted Thanksgiving before. I have actually made this turkey and gravy recipe before...and the stuffing...and mashed potatoes... The only snafu could come from bad timing. Here's the link I found to help with that: Cook's Illustrated: Game Plan.

It seems that Cook's Illustrated has little faith in its readership. We are following a recipe for cornmeal stuffing from the December 2000 issue of Cook's Illustrated. After a dissertation on the subtleties of corn bread stuffing it leads you to MAKE THE CORNBREAD. What's up with the website lowering the bar to " Up to 3 days before serving: Cut bread (for the stuffing) into cubes and leave out to stale." I feel like they think that we're cheating. Isn't the whole point that we are supposed to learn from their mistakes and follow their recipes because they are THE BEST? Whatever. Actually, I'm not following their corn bread recipe. It has sausage in it (I prefer a vegetarian stuffing), it has whipping cream in it (I've made stuffing before - it doesn't need whipping cream. Like we aren't getting enough fat in the rest of the meal? What's their point?) and two eggs. Now, I've seen a couple of recipes that use the eggs...but my mom didn't and D's mom didn't and I didn't when I made kick-ass stuffing before so I'm not feeling experimental.

Before I found that last link I actually had already planned to do the cornbread today b/c I knew it should be stale. So we went shopping today and the buttermilk cornbread is probably about ready to be eaten.

I'm going to go get some...